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Friday, October 26, 2012

so are you sick of the little dude or in this case dudette cupcake toppers??? i mean i've made them so many times now i think i can do them in my sleep....(like gnomes, leprechauns, uncle sam's, the harry potter crew)....but hey it's halloween season and what's better than some green witches!

as with all the other ones, they are basically made with hershey kisses, tootsie rolls (in this case lime flavored!), and candy wafers/melts...

cut the very tip off the kiss then unwrap the tootsie roll and microwave it for no more than 10 seconds to get it pliable...roll tootsie roll into a ball (save a little bit from one of them to make some long witch noses) and just stick the nose onto the ball head (it will stick just fine without anything else to adhere it)

attach the head to the body with some candy melt/wafer....then once dry dip the body into some black candy melt (i use a small shallow dish to do this so i can control it better)...oh and if the candy melt is too warm it will melt the kiss, so make sure it's not way hot when you dip...don't worry if your dipping isn't perfect to the top of the green head...you can fill in with a color to cover up any imperfections...

for the witches hats, i originally used bugles dipped in black candy melt, but they seemed too large, so decided to go with candy corn dipped in candy melt instead...."pipe" a circle of black candy melt for the brim, then while still wet add a candy corn....once dry dip the rest of the candy corn into the black candy....

i wanted something a little fun for the cupcakes so went a yellow boxed cake mix and then tinted halloween colors....add to 3 zip lock bags and then pipe a little of each color at a time into the cupcake liners....

cool right? but i still can't decide if they look all "halloween-y" or maybe more "camo-y"!..either way i think it brightens up these cupcakes a lot!

pipe some yellow hair (or whatever color hair you prefer your witches to have) with yellow candy melt (add to a zip lock bag, melt in microwave, snip an end and pipe) and while the hair is still wet, attach a hat....add a white sprinkle to the hat as a "buckle", add some green "arms", and eyes with edible food writer.....the icing on the cupcakes is just tinted vanilla buttercream (grey icing-yum!) with some black sugar crystals on top....

and ta-da, you get some fun halloween cupcakes topped with some edible witches---which must mean halloween is right around the corner!

and holy cow if halloween is around the corner, that means turkey day and all the winter holidays will be here any minute as well....actually by the looks of popular pins over at pinterest, they are here! oh well what can you do, the time moves faster and faster every year and this note from my 8 year old proves i need to slow down a little and work on my "delivery" a bit more 'cause i surely don't want to be remembered as "mad mom"...i smell a new years resolution in there somewhere!

Friday, October 19, 2012

...so the fall weather is finally here! ....and the leaves are falling and we've got a ton of acorns all over the yard (which also means a ton of squirrels running around too!)....

these edible acorns were requested for a party based on these....they are so simple and made with hershey's kisses---in chocolate and pumpkin spice (i think there is pumpkin flavored EVERYTHING now....who knew they even had pumpkin spice kisses???)

...instead of crackers on top (couldn't find a good flavor combo)...used mini nilla wafers which were just the right size for an acorn cap! Attach with a little melted chocolate....let chocolate harden and use a edible food writer to add some detail on top of the cap...then add another little bit of chocolate on top for the "stem"

and you get a bunch of fun and all edible acorns to feed to your "squirrels"!....and like i said, they are super simple to put together....the part that takes the longest is unwrapping all the kisses!...and you can always add to some cupcakes or just eat them by the handful (not that i do that sort of thing!)

the chocolate and nilla wafer is a really great combo and if you like pumpkin spice (ala a pumkin spice latte) then you'll dig the pumpkin spice acorns too!

Don't forget online blogcon is coming up next week....hope to see you there!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

...so today i'm guest posting over at Cupcakes Garden which is a new site all about cupcakes and features some really fun cupcake recipes! see more here on these unusual flavored cupcakes which were part of these fall flavored cupcake ghosts....

i never really posted the how to's (except for the avocado cupcakes, that's posted here)....so pop over to Cupcakes Garden and find out all the details and see more!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

...so i love all the fall and halloween stuff all over the blogosphere!! there are some creative people out there all year round, but it's so neat to see everyone's take on the this time of year...

and pumpkin of course is top on the list of ingredients to use....i think most people either love it or hate it though....(my kids don't like it, but they are in that phase of if it's new, they don't like it...hopefully as they get older that will change...i was the same way until college)

...for brownies i usually use a box mix because it's just so simple and i'm usually in a rush...but these are a from scratch recipe i found at Confections of a Foodie Bride (great pics and recipes there!)..and instead of swirling the pumpkin cream cheese part with the brownie....i added the cream cheese swirl ingredients together before adding the pumpkin...then separate into 2 bowls, to one add the pumpkin and the other i left pumpkin out and added some purple food gel to make these brownies more halloween-y!

...then swirl (don't mix too much because you may end up with just some gray looking cream cheese!)

and you get some brownies dressed and spiced up for the season!....chocolate and pumpkin may not be for everyone...my kids ate them, but only after the pumpkin/cream cheese part had been scrapped off....oh well, maybe next time :) but making homemade brownies is super simple, and these were nice and moist like a brownie should be....

Friday, October 5, 2012

yay it's october!!! so let the halloween season officially begin! and these may be one of the simplest treats yet!....pretzels, candy melt, candy for the "little monsters" and pretzels, frosting, and candy for the "pretzel sandwiches"....

somehow i accumulated a bunch of different candy corn flavors....they come in so many now like caramel, candy apple, caramel apple, cherry, chocolate covered, etc! just add some candy melt/wafers (i put in a zip lock bag, microwave until soft, and snip an end of the bag off to pipe) to pretzels (i used square and mini pretzels) along with some eyes (the yellow eyes i got awhile back pre made and others (the white eyes) are just made from candy melt--pipe a small circle, then pipe a smaller black circle, and let harden....add candy corn and eyes before candy hardens and add some fangs or teeth with more white candy melt, and that's it!...get creative!..you could use any number of candies for this...

the "sandwiches" are made from square pretzels and leftover butterscotch buttercream from these cupcakes...(it's so yummy i couldn't let it go to waste)...then dip the sides of the sandwiches in colored sugar or use up some of those sprinkles you keep collecting....i found some neat halloween skulls and spiders last year on sale....

and you get a perfect bite sized mouthful of sweet and salty pretzel snacks....ok maybe these are pretty much just candy, but they are so simple, fun, colorful and all halloween-y!

hope you enjoy these and have a boo-tiful and spooktacular week! (haha, i crack myself up!)